OT -Which hearing aid batteries are better, Eveready or Ray-o-Vac?

Trying to decide what brand of hearing aid batteries to buy, wife has heard Eveready are not too good, RayoVac may be better. I'm curious if any actual data out there. Consumer Reports has nothing that I could find.

I buy my hearing-aid batteries at Costco -- $10 or less for 40. All
sizes the same price, I think. They are Costco branded, but I think they
might be Ray-o-Vac. My #13 batteries last about 12-14 days.
Perce

to buy, wife has heard Eveready are not too good,
RayoVac may be better. I'm curious if any actual
data out there. Consumer Reports has nothing that
I could find.

For me, I get about eight days out of either of those
brands. And about two weeks out of
https://www.ecogold.com/
Duracell, the shape of the battery doesn't make contact
in my hearing aids, they don't work dependably.
Please do not buy far in advance. The batteries go
dead in a year or so (I've not really tested this).
I'd love to have four years batteries in hand in case
I lose my job, but they go dead.

I have not noticed any real difference from brand to brand, with all of
them lasting roughly the same length of time for the same hearing aid at
the same settings..
I've been wearing hearing aids for 47 years. Battery sizes used have been
675, 13, and (briefly) 312. Currently I'm wearing a pair of Siemens Nitro,
which use 675.
What is far more important for battery life than brand is how much power
the hearing aid draws versus the size of the battery used. But that's a
design issue and is affected by the settings of the hearing aid.
Your hearing aid provider should give you a trial period of a couple of
weeks. Battery life will be revealed during that trial period.
The worst instance for me was a pair of Widex I-forget-whats I recently
tried that took 312s. My hearing-loss meant that the Widexes needed to be
boosted to nearly their maximum output. Battery life was FIVE DAYS. The
312s were simply too small for the power needed.
My surrent Siemens get about three weeks out of their 675s -- regardless of
brand. That's the longest of any hearing aid I've ever had.

It happens that I had to see my hearing-aid specialitst today. I asked her
about battery life between brands. She said she has not noticed any
significant difference from brand to brand. However, she has had reports
from some clients that Energizers tend to have a somewhat shorter life than
other brands, but these are purely anecdotal reports.
My personal preference is for Duracell, since they have a very long pull-
tab on the oxygen-seal that greatly reduces the risk of dropping the
battery while removing the oxygen-seal. This is important when handling
tiny sizes like 13 and 312. Sometimes it is possible to use that pull-tab
to place the battery in its compartment prior to removal of the seal. That
also makes handling easier, especially if your hands are arthritic.

Here in Canada, the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) has a TV show
called "Market Place" where they investigate issues important to
consumers.
One of their shows was about alkaline batteries. They wanted to know
which alkaline batteries were the best, and after a fair bit of
comparison, they found that there was no correlation at all between
battery price and battery quality. Their recommendation was to buy the
least expensive alkaline batteries because there was no indication
whatever that paying more for the batteries would result in batteries
that lasted longer, held their charge better or any of the important
parameters people use to compare alkaline batteries.

Someone in the US tried that with digital cameras. Found
that Costco generic were the best value. They did find
that in digital cameras, lithium AA did last three or four
times longer. Worth the money, if you were at a family thing
taking a LOT of pictures.

Really. I've been using zinc-air Duracells in 675 and 13 for very, very
many years and there has never been one single problem with them. Not one.
Ever. Except when they accidentally make it into the laundry; and that
kills any hearing-aid battery.
Back in the '60s and '70s you occasionally encountered dud batteries in the
pack. The pack was therefore provided with little holes in the plastic
blister and a conductive surface on the backing paper. That way you could
use a multimeter to quickly check the voltage of each cell in the pack
without removing them from the pack. But those days are LONG gone, along
with the mercury that was then used. Modern batteries are 100% reliable now
regardless of brand.

I'll have to take your word on that, since I'd never heard of that brand.
I see from Eco-Gold's website that they buy these batteries from Varta, a
well-known European battery maker. It's strange that they can advertise
them as having "longer lasting high voltage", to be less prone to
corrosion, to have assuredly consistent voltage across the battery, and yet
still be 60% of the cost of "the most common" batteries.
Assuming Eco-Gold's claims of the "most common" batteries costing about
$1.12 each for a pack of 8, and assuming they last two weeks, I'm spending
roughly five dollars a month to run my two hearing aids. Trying to cut that
cost is pointless. And batteries are available in any drug store.

on one particular day -- I don't recall now whether it was a particular

I once got a fistful of valuable discount coupons (about $80 worth) by
making a scene about a "detail man" (it was actually a woman) rolling into
the doctor's office ahead of me with her rolling suitcase after I had been
waiting quite some time. She explained that she was only dropping off some
samples but that Federal law required her to get the MD to sign for them at
the time of delivery.
The doctor (who I knew quite well) didn't mention my dustup other than to
say he depends on the pharamacy rep to leave samples that he can give to
patients that otherwise couldn't afford their drugs. Whether that's all
true or not I don't know, but it sounded like a reasonable explanation. I
took the payola gladly, I confess! The MD also gave me two neat pens (with
an Alzheimer's drug name on them) that had laser pointers built-in, so I got
a double payoff for squawking. Now I have to find a half-sized Cross refill
or buy a full sized one and cut it down - could be messy!

permit TV advertising of prescription-only medications.
And IIRC, they bundle those advertising costs into R&D when they complain
about how much it costs to bring new drugs to market. It would cost a lot
less without all those glossy magazine ads and TV commercials.
My MD has mixed feelings about the ads. He believes that sometimes
advertising alerts people to conditions they might not realize they have but
more often pushes meds to people that don't really need them (he cites Low-T
ads as being the worst of that class of ads).

Not sure what year, but we had a medical product which required C, or AA
batteries, or was that AAA? sorry can't remember which. We found the
longest lasting was Ray-O-vac, but they had a 'leakage'problem that bit us
every now and then. The second was Everaedy, lasting [from memory] around
80 to 85% as long as ray-ovac. And Duracell was a major joke! cost as much
as everready, but lasted about half as long.
I'm sure by now these companies have solved their ills, sorted out their
battery chemistry and packaging, and are all equal now. ;)

Did you read /any/ of my posts?
There is no detectable difference in hearing-aid battery life from brand to
brand, so buy whichever is
1) on sale,
2) easist to find,
3) has the most convenient oxygen-seal pull-tab.
Personally, I prefer Duracell on account of their long pull-tab making
their nbatteries the most convenient and easiest to handle.

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